Biography / Info

As one of Manchester’s most exciting and immediately captivating young bands, Airship are on the cusp of special things, so luckily theirs is a band not only based on a passion to create great music, but also on good friendships.
Made up of Marcus Wheeldon on guitar, Steve Griffiths on drums, bassist Tom Dyball, and vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Elliott Williams, if you don’t yet know Airship, it’s probably due in part to them accidentally laying low in their city centre bunker and endlessly writing and creating. If they were going to get it right, they had to get it right, and very few people even in Manchester became aware of them such was their determination to hone the most exciting and tight live set. Just before the release of their self-financed demos EP in the local independent record haunts, Airship began really treating their band like a day job. Practicing incessantly in their old warehouse, Airship funded the band by fitting in part-time jobs, and spending six hours writing and rehearsing their music daily.
Neither paying homage to, nor showing any particular affinity to the heritage of Mancunian sound, Airship began to play incessantly at the city’s Night & Day venue, ensuring that they were match fit to play both outside of their comfort zone and beyond their immediate surroundings. It is a strategy that is already reaping the rewards, and armed with big, bold choruses and the ability to write a killer pop hook to oddball time signatures, Airship could never stay a secret for long. As is the proud Manchester way, the word of mouth snowball started rolling and rolling.
“We were probably trying to write songs that we thought people wanted to hear, rather than what we really wanted to write when we first started. We focused on the music we wanted to make - people can tell if you’re not into what you’re playing.” Although a simple learning curve in a new band, the lesson paid off, and today, Airship’s biggest strength is their honesty within their song writing skills.
As the opportunities to connect with people became more frequent, their musical identity fell into place, and it fell quickly. The artful quartet found themselves on tour with bigger bands and to bigger audiences. Concluding recent tours with Frightened Rabbit and The Joy Formidable, Airship will soon descend on Europe opening for Editors throughout the Spring.
For Airship, it is now a case of knowing exactly what they’re doing as a cohesive unit, and diving into it artistically. The band record and produce all their own material within those warehouse confines, and drummer Steven believes after all the time they’ve spent crafting their sound, that without pretension, their songs reflect “intelligent pop music.” Today, there is a sense of community amongst their immediate peers, but unlike past surges of musical venture in the city, Elliott insists, “It isn’t a genre community, there’s good music in Manchester at present, but it’s all different. It’s not about the history, but what comes next”
Airship are different to what would usually fit into a commercial guitar-pop market because they are without any pre-agenda, it’s a totally candid approach that understandably excites the expanding audiences to which they are now playing. Perhaps it’s that exploration in themselves musically that will allow Airship a place in an ever-growing British talent pool, but pandering to it just isn’t their style.
In May Airship will release a debut four-track EP which centres around soaring riffs and harmonies true to their live performances. It’s fresh and exciting but familiar in its determination to break down close confines with its sheer brute force. Bouncing off each other on and offstage, Elliott concludes, “Whenever we’re in a room together, it’s never boring. Years down the line, it would be cool to know we’d helped someone in their life, because so many bands have done that for us.”
A story of teenage music fans developing into a professional band isn’t a new one, but with these four Manchester boys determined to bring something different to the table in 2010, there’s a true sense that their legitimate goals won’t be very far out of reach.